It’s been a chaotic year for investment app Robinhood. The platform played a significant role in the famous GameStop short squeeze in January, where huge volumes of retail investors organised themselves on Reddit to dumbfound hedge funds and send the shorted stock to unprecedented highs.

Now, as Robinhood prepares to go public, could we see more short squeezes like GameStop emerging on a regular basis?

Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, Robinhood has rarely strayed from controversy. The app’s imposition of restrictions on the investor accounts in the wake of the GameStop saga drew criticism from investors and onlookers alike.

In May, Warren Buffett, one of Wall Street’s most famous figures, likened Robinhood to a casino. “American corporations have turned out to be a wonderful place for people to put their money and save but they also make terrific gambling chips,” explained Buffett.

“If you cater to those gambling chips when people have money in their pocket for the first time and you tell them they can make 30 or 40 or 50 trades a day and you’re not charging them any commission but you’re selling their order flow or whatever … I hope we don’t have more of it.”

However, despite the controversies, Robinhood’s outpaced all of its competitors since the arrival of the pandemic to become one of the biggest names on the investment scene.

As the chart above shows, Robinhood significantly outpaced traditional brokers since the beginning of 2020. Despite drawing criticism in the wake of the GameStop saga, we can see that downloads spiked at the time.

Also Read: 6-month-old Infina wants to become the “RobinHood” of Vietnam with a US$2M funding

Perhaps most significantly of all is that data shows Robinhood account holders have, on average, a much smaller portfolio than those on more traditional brokerage platforms like Morgan Stanley and Charles Schwab.

This shows that the app is consciously seeking to build appeal with more casual investors who are looking to place some spare money into stocks and shares.

With a long-anticipated IPO set to launch in July, Robinhood may well win more appeal among retail investors. But what will the impact of having a dominant retail market on one app be? And could we see more GameStop short squeezes as a result?

The rise of the memes

The age of the pandemic has led to a widespread influx of new retail investors into the stocks and shares landscape. Maxim Manturov, head of investment research at Freedom Finance Europe, believes that the addition of stimulus packages has paved the way for more entrants into the investing landscape than before.

The pandemic supplied additional reasons for the retail investment market to grow. To support the economy, most countries adopted stimulating policies, which brought both the loan and deposit interest rates to historic lows,” Manturov said.

“As an alternative to low-rate deposits, many started investing their savings into stock markets, which posted significant gains last year despite the lockdown and the productivity slump.”

Many of these new arrivals have coordinated with social media users to generate money on apps like Robinhood by squeezing ailing assets.

Recently, individual investors arranged on social media to drive up the price of AMC, a struggling US movie theatre chain, pushing up shares by 71 per cent. Off the back of this momentum, AMC announced a US$230 million hedge fund investment– only for the said fund to dump the shares a matter of hours later claiming the stock had become ‘overvalued.’ Subsequently the stock surged even higher.

Also Read: Accelerating Asian IPO markets: How long can the initial public offering boom last?

This event, which is largely similar to that of the GameStop saga in January, has shown that social media-driven short squeezes aren’t a one-off and that people with spare money are increasingly willing to social-invest in nostalgic or novel companies in order to inflate the value of their stocks and generate greater personal wealth.

The impact of meme investors on social media is such that it’s now not uncommon to see articles appearing on websites like Yahoo! Finance speculating where the next short squeeze may come from by investigating Reddit sentiment and plucking the most frequently discussed stocks out of the forum.

Robinhood’s timely IPO will keep focus on wall street

The timing of Robinhood’s IPO could be significant for retail investors looking to capitalise on the next short squeeze. The cryptocurrency landscape is still reeling from Bitcoin’s tumbling price across May and June, and the value of meme crypto assets like Doge is still in retreat.

Robinhood’s flotation coupled with an uninspiring crypto landscape could drive even greater levels of interest towards meme stocks and the lure of short squeezes.

As the data above shows, three notable meme stocks in GameStop, AMC, and Blackberry have all trended upwards following the decline of cryptocurrencies, and Reddit forum WallStreetBets has been eager to pump the three stocks even further.

These aren’t the only stocks that have been targeted, with the likes of Nokia also acting as a nostalgia-driven meme stock and even commodities like silver has seen sentiment growing around it.

Although the pandemic is subsiding, it appears that the rise of meme stocks and sentiment-driven investing is only gathering momentum. The recent surges in AMC price shows that enthusiasm among retail investors for generating quick profits is growing beyond that of the GameStop short squeeze of January.

In going public, Robinhood will open itself up to greater levels of adoption among retail investors. As a result, Wall Street may have to adapt to this new era of short squeezes and social investing.

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Speedhome (formerly Speedrent), an online property rental platform in Malaysia, has announced that it has raised RM7 million (US$1.7 million) in Series A funding from Gobi Partners and Allianz Malaysia, an investment holding company and a subsidiary of global insurance major Allianz.

The Kuala Lumpur-headquartered startup will use the capital for regional expansion and tech advancements. “This fund will help us kickstart our regional expansion in Bangkok and accelerate our efforts towards making Speedhome as the region’s super app for property investors,” CEO Wong Whei Meng said.

It aims to expand regionally to 10 other metropolitan cities in the next five years, namely Bangkok, Manila, Jakarta, Taipei, Ho Chi Minh, Hanoi, Melbourne, Sydney, Hong Kong, and Singapore.

Also Read: Can SEA’s proptech come back to its pre-COVID-19 glory? Experts speak

Established in 2015, Speedhome aims to simplify the rental process. A zero-deposit automated platform, it connects landlords directly to quality tenants providing rental protection services.

It combines mobile technology and automation to bring together a pool of tenants, transparency and interactivity for all users to make more informed decisions during the rental search experience. Landlords are free to advertise and manage their properties and contact potential tenants anytime, anywhere.

The company claims its mobile app has over 575,000 app downloads on Play Store and App Store so far, and a database of more than 128,000 property listings.

In partnership with Allianz Malaysia, Speedhome also provides insurance and rental protection of up to RM42,000 (US$100,000), covering more than standard security deposits.

Speedhome further claims that it helped tenants free up a total of RM37 million (US$8.8 million) over the years through zero-deposit rental.

The proptech firm claims to have managed to soften the adverse impact of the pandemic on the property industry with the introduction of its ‘virtual viewing’ and ‘home runners’ services that addressed the restrictions posed by the various Movement Control Order (MCO).

Thomas G.Tsao, Chairman of Gobi Partners, said: “Speedhome is one of our first investments for Gobi’s SuperSeed Fund II. This investment also marks another venture into the booming proptech industry for our firm. In Indonesia, we currently have two proptech investments that are doing well during these uncertain times — online short-term home rental marketplace Travelio, and premium coworking space operator GoWork. As such, we see great things ahead for Speedhome, and we are optimistic about the company’s ability to perform well in the Malaysian market.”

Also Read: Edukasyon investor Foxmont joins Philippine proptech startup AHG’s US$1.1M seed round

“Digital partnerships are very much part of our strategy at Allianz Malaysia as we look towards capitalising on new opportunities and new markets. However, more importantly, we are equally driven to support our local digital champions, startups like Speedhome, and currently have over 50 active digital partnerships across various sectors. Speedhome has been a standout digital player in the property rental industry, whose innovative ideas have enhanced the way we do business,” said Zakri Khir, CEO of Allianz Malaysia.

The proptech sector in Malaysia has seen a lot of activities in recent months.

In May, Singapore-headquartered PropertyGuru Group acquired REA Group’s operating entities in Malaysia, iProperty.com.my.

Last October, Patrick Grove, co-founder of iProperty Group and Catcha Group, joined hands with serial entrepreneur Eric Tan to launch an online home rental platform Instahome in Malaysia, with a “7-figure USD” seed funding.

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Image Credit: Speedhome

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Vara, a Singapore-based staff management platform for small businesses in Southeast Asia, has secured US$4.8 million in a funding round.

Investors include Go Ventures, RTP Global, Alpha JWC Ventures, Sequoia Capital India’s Surge, FEBE Ventures, and Taurus Ventures.

“Our ultimate goal at Vara is to deliver more time, energy, and money into the hands of SMEs and their staff. This funding round enables us to continue developing our products and serving our users with an increasing set of value-additive features to accomplish exactly that,” said Abhinav Karale, co-founder at Vara.

In many countries in Southeast Asia, small businesses form the backbone of their respective economies. For example, in Indonesia, over 60 million small businesses contribute to more than 60 per cent of the country’s GDP and employ close to 95 per cent of the labour force.

Since many of these businesses operate in labour-heavy segments of the economy, their staff is critical to daily operations. However, a vast majority of these organisations still manage their human capital — from tracking attendance to tabulating salary — manually.

For employers, this process of attendance and payroll management is cumbersome, time-consuming, and prone to human error. Vara seeks to address this issue by digitising SMEs and their employees.

Also Read: Malaysian startup HAUZ’s all-in-one platform enables companies to manage workforce remotely

Founded in November 2020, Vara aims to transform how small companies manage their staff. Its product, Bukugaji, is geared towards the Indonesian market and claims to have serviced the staff management needs of over 100,000 small companies.

Bukugaji allows business owners to quickly track staff attendance, tabulate salary and loans, generate payslips, and disburse payroll within a few minutes.

Vara is also part of Surge’s fifth cohort of 23 startups that have developed new digital solutions to help companies and individuals work, live, and learn better in a rapidly evolving Southeast Asian landscape.

However, the workforce management model is not new as Vara is likely to face competition from several similar players operating in this vertical, including Hauz, Swingvy, HReasily, and more.

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Next Gen Foods, a Singapore-headquartered plant-based foodtech startup, has extended its seed financing round by raising US$20 million afresh.

This comes less than five months after it raised US$10 million from a host of investors, including Temasek and K3 Ventures — bringing the total funds raised from this round to US$30 million.

The latest tranche came from a clutch of investors, including existing backers Temasek and K3 Ventures. Others who participated in the round are global fund GGV Capital; China-based agriculture and foodtech venture fund Bits x Bites; Yeo Hiap Seng (Asian food and beverage player); Chris Yeh, co-author of Blitzscaling, a book on how tech companies build scale quickly; and a prominent group of athletes including Dele Alli, the England national team footballer.

Also Read: Alt.Flex.Eat: Flexitarianism is the flavour of the SEAson

The investment will drive the entry of Next Gen’s plant-based chicken brand TiNDLE to the US market within the next 12 months. It will be hiring more than 50 employees across R&D, sales, supply chain, finance and marketing in the country.

The US is the largest plant-based meat market and home to leading plant-based brands Impossible Foods and Beyond Meat. According to the Good Food Institute, the US retail market for plant-based foods was worth US$7 billion in 2020, up from US$5.5 billion in 2019.

“The United States is the world’s biggest market for plant-based foods. We are already putting our foundations in place to be in-market within the next 12 months as we accelerate our goal of becoming the world’s number one plant-based chicken. The outstanding response from both existing and new investors shows their confidence in our innovative technology, highly scalable business model, differentiated taste experiences and the ability of our team to make TiNDLE a market leader in the US,” said Next Gen co-founder and CEO Andre Menezes.

“Following our March 2021 TiNDLE launch, we have expanded to three key markets, and we expect to be in more than five by end-2021, a mark that some leading brands do not cross after years of existence. We are scaling at this incredibly fast pace with our asset-lite business model, distribution network, talent, and collaborations with great chefs and hot restaurants,” added CMO Jean Madden.

A portion of the capital will also be used for the continued international expansion in APAC and the Middle East, developing its technology, establishing a research and development centre in Singapore and product diversification.

The roadmap for the next one to two years includes raising Series A funding, product diversification, and continued international expansion, notably into Europe.

Additionally, Next Gen has announced changes to its leadership team. CEO Timo Recker is taking the position of Chairman and COO Andre Menezes is the new CEO. Rohit Bhattacharya, who was previously Director at Temasek, joins Next Gen as CFO.

Next Gen was co-founded by Recker and Menezes in October 2020. The duo personally invested US$2.2 million into the company from the get-go. Recker is the founder and former CEO of German plant-based meat company LikeMeat while Menezes was the General Manager of Country Foods Singapore.

First launched in Singapore in early 2021, TiNDLE is sold in over 70 restaurants in Singapore, Hong Kong and Macau. This includes ADDA by four-time Michelin Star Chef Manjunath Mural and two Michelin Star Bo Innovation by Chef Alvin Leung in Hong Kong.

Also Read: ‘Global demand for plant-based meat products will be driven mostly by flexitarians: Next Gen’s Andre Menezes

Developed by Next Gen CTO John Seegers in collaboration with chefs and for chefs, the first TiNDLE product TiNDLE Thy, brings the taste and versatility of chicken. Chefs can use TiNDLE Thy to prepare dishes in multiple culinary applications, and for many kinds of cuisines: Western, Chinese, Indian, Middle Eastern and more.

The global plant-based protein segment is expected to reach US$85 billion by 2030, according to UBS. Global investment in food technology for the first three quarters of 2020 was US$8.37 billion, beating the US$7 billion raised in 2019.

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Image Credit: Next Gen Foods

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The Indonesian Venture Capital landscape has evolved dramatically in the past ten years, creating enormous opportunities. In a podcast with IndoTekno’s Alan Hellawell  I shared 15 years of my experience in technology entrepreneurship and venture investment from China and Indonesia’s markets.

So much has changed in the Indonesian VC ecosystem since I first started working on a fund in 2014. From an investor’s perspective, among the most apparent challenges previously was finding entrepreneurial talent and significant downstream funding risk.

But back then we were pioneering and starting venture capital as an asset class in Indonesia along with several other players in the market.

However, entrepreneurs faced bigger challenges than just securing funding. The entire market for the online space, payment and logistics infrastructure was still very nascent. Smartphone capabilities were also far from where they are now, and of course, without the penetration of Gojek, Grab, and Shopee, consumer confidence was much lower.

Just seven years on, things have entirely changed. The majority of consumers do not think twice about buying online given the prevalence of online shopping apps.

In addition, the hardware used in smartphones is far better, including all the supporting infrastructure for e-commerce, payments, and logistics.

When it comes to the talent ecosystem, we’ve also seen extensive recycling of talent, not just promising returnees; but also early team members who have graduated from Tokopedia, Gojek, Grab, Shopee and decided to start their own businesses. And this has fuelled the growth of new companies in the ecosystem.

Also Read: India’s first accelerator and VC fund gears up for its maiden demo day series

Now, while Indonesia still is some ways away from receiving the capital attention that a market like India has received; nonetheless, we’ve seen multiple funds raised, successive funds, as well as top-tier global investors plugging this gap in both Series B and Series C and onwards.

So, the environment and ecosystem investing in venture businesses are far more mature than several years ago.

Focus on growth over monetisation

When looking at Indonesia, VC cites many superlatives about how significant Indonesia’s potential is as the fourth most populous country in the world.

However, the question that then arises is whether this large market can be monetised?

For me, it’s important to understand that while tech companies often take time to monetise, they are often disrupting traditional incumbents through their better and more efficient models. So, the potential revenue cake or monetisation potential can sometimes be seen in their conventional counterparts.

If you want to understand in the future how big that pie is and how big these technology companies can become, you can look at some of the traditional incumbents they are seeking to disrupt.

For example in the banking industry, BCA is one of the most valuable businesses in Indonesia and Southeast Asia. Meanwhile, if we look at the consumer category (FMCG), there are companies such as Indofood or Gudang Garam. These companies are among the largest publicly listed companies worth multibillion dollars.

And so we can see from the traditional counterparts, whether we’re tackling fintech or e-commerce, that it is possible to build companies of this size.

Also Read: BRI Agro CEO Kaspar Situmorang: Why tapping into the ecosystem is key to a digital bank’s success

However, like China, and many other markets, at the early stages of many technology-enabled businesses, their focus is on adoption and growth instead of monetisation.

Most companies, certainly prior to Series C businesses, are much more focused on their growth trajectory than monetisation.

The most promising investment opportunities

One sector that we have a vast amount of confidence in is MSMEs or micro, small and medium enterprises. However, it’s pretty hard to drive meaningful subscription revenue from these small-medium enterprises on a SaaS (software-as-a-service) basis from what we’ve seen so far.

And because of their small size, they also have a low willingness to pay for software or tools that they may be using. So this is one area that’s yet to see some solid monetisation.

If we talk about how big this market is based on reports, there are over 63M MSMEs in Indonesia that employ over 97 per cent of working adults.

Clearly, there is a massive market here as well as multiple ways of monetising in the future, in particular through the quality collection of data to provide financial services to the unbanked and underbanked.

Comparison between Indonesia and China

There are several similarities when talking about the Indonesian and Chinese markets. For example, China is a large, homogeneous market enabling massive scaling of technology-enabled businesses. This is the reason why we focus on Indonesia, not ASEAN or SEA.

We believe that founders in this region should start through building in the single largest market in SEA and not think regionally too early. Almost all of Indonesia’s billion dollar tech companies focus exclusively on the Indonesian market.

Also Read: Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia, Vietnam have a huge potential in APAC for neobank growth

The second thing, as we’ve seen in China, there’s themassive importance of localisation. Even though we’re identifying disruptive; proven disruptive business models that we see in markets, such as India or China; it’s not a simple copy-paste.

On the other hand, there are some clear differences. For example, in China, certain industries are highly regulated such as search and social media. Hence in China can see the emergence of companies such as Baidu and Tencent.

But in Indonesia, this is not possible because of the open market. So you’ve seen the dominance of Facebook, TikTok, and global players take dominant market share in these areas.

The second thing is the role of government. The Indonesian government has worked in a very inclusive and proactive manner to support the growth of the digital economy.

We can see this very clearly in terms of how the Indonesian government has approached regulation in fintech compared to how it happened in China.

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Singapore-based Nium, which offers cross-border payment services in multiple countries around the world, has secured US$78 million in a new round of funding, says a DealStreetAsia report, citing a filing with the Accounting and Corporate and Regulatory Authority (ACRA) of Singapore.

Investors in the round include existing backer Vertex Growth Fund and several others.

e27 has reached out to Nium for a comment.

This funding round comes close on the heels of Nium’s announcement of acquiring Wirecard Forex India, a foreign currency exchange, pre-paid card, and remittance services provider, last week. Wirecard Forex India is a unit of German fintech giant Wirecard Sales International Holding, which hit the headlines last year when it filed for insolvency in June 2020 due to one of the biggest accounting scandals in modern European history.

Founded in 2014, Nium (earlier known as InstaReM) is a global payments platform to enable businesses to send, spend, and receive money from around the world, in addition to empowering them to develop their own products that simplify cross-border payments.

Also Read: Digital remittance startup InstaReM rebrands into Nium, offering global enterprise payments platform

The platform connects businesses to the world’s payment infrastructure through one API. Its modular platform for Pay In, Pay Out and Card-Issuance allows banks, payment providers, travel companies and other businesses to collect and disburse funds in local currencies to over 100 countries, plus issue physical and virtual cards globally.

The firm claims it issues approximately 30 million physical and virtual cards today and is licensed in 11 jurisdictions, including direct card issuing capabilities in 24 countries and in 40 currencies.

The company is regulated in the US, the European Union, Singapore, Canada, Hong Kong, India, Australia, and Malaysia.

To date, the company has raised over US$170 million across several rounds of financing. This includes US$41 million Series C funding led by Vertexg Growth in March 2019 and US$18 million in Series B led by GSR Ventures in July 2017.

Nium’s other investors are MDI Ventures (Indonesia), Beacon Venture Capital (Thailand), Rocket Internet, and SBI-FMO Fund.

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Image Credit: Nium

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Hero Electric Vehicles raises US$29M

Investors: Gulf Islamic Investments (lead), OAKS

What the funding will be used for: Expanding production capacity, consolidating market position to strengthen market leadership, and invest in technology to grow footprint across India-like markets.

The company will also direct this investment towards the objective of further supporting the EV industry and ecosystem.

More about the story: To achieve the vision of exponential growth and double sales every year, the company plans to make significant additions to its manufacturing capacity by setting up multiple plants over the next couple of years.

It will also focus on India-centric, flexible, and cost-effective innovations that will drive the growth of electric mobility which is in line with making India the EV hub of the world.

“The EV market has undergone tremendous change over the last few years since we raised our first round of funding. The policies are extremely conducive for the growth of the segment and despite the pandemic, the company is poised to grow at over 2X from the last fiscal. Hero aims to sell over 1 million units per year in the next couple of years,” said Naveen Munjal, Managing Director, Hero Electric.

theAsianparent appoints Fiza Hasan Malhotra as Chief Branding Officer

More about the story: Prior to her current role Hasan was the head of business development and corporate innovation at Impact Hub Singapore. She has also worked for global brands Credit Suisse, Space Matrix, and Citibank.

Also Read: Ecosystem Roundup: AirAsia is set to fly higher, Bukalapak looks for the largest IPO in IDX history

“My goal is to put theAsianparent Group and its core brands on the path of global market leadership, powered by authentic brand experiences delivered to our community of parents, employees, clients, and our current and future stakeholders,” she said.

About theAsianparent Group: An online magazine for parents that helps them in parenting their children.

Virtual Internships raises US$2.5M led by Sequoia India’s Surge.

Other investors: 500 Startups, iSeed, Arc Impact, and Hustle Fund.

About the company: Based in London, Virtual Internships provides global work experience programmes for young people to kick-start their careers in a borderless world.

The company aims to widen participation and provide access to jobs for students of all backgrounds and nationalities.

More about the startup: The platform claims to have seen a rise in the number of student sign-ups from 100 students in 2019 to 1,700 in 2020, and over 6,000 are set to take part in 2021.

It also has the participation of 4,000 host companies across 70 countries, and over 100 universities and educational institutions worldwide.

“Digitalisation has completely accelerated the way we work with people across the globe and internships should mirror this pattern. With a focus on accessibility, diversity, and clear learning outcomes, we’ve redesigned the internship experience for a new, virtual and borderless world,” said Daniel Nivern, co-founder of Virtual Internships.

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Alternative Housing Group (AHG), a real-estate tech startup and proptech incubator in the Philippines, has secured P55 million (US$1.1 million) in seed funding.

The round was led by Foxmont Capital Partners, a local VC fund and investor in homegrown startups such as Kumu, Edukasyon.ph, and Booky.

Real estate mogul David Leechiu, entrepreneur Melissa Limcaoco, and Magsaysay family also joined.

The startup plans to fuel its upcoming projects that they have prepared and lined up in the coming years — ready to reach greater heights and build the future of the Philippine real estate industry.

Also Read: Can SEA’s proptech come back to its pre-COVID-19 glory? Experts speak

AHG was started by Revianne Sesante, Ryan Llamoso, and Patrick Llamoso. It focuses on rolling out asset-light accommodation brands, organising and structuring integrated services for renting and buying, and developing proptech applications. It also builds real estate vertical platforms and develops new applications for property auctions, fractional property ownership and other solutions for the real estate market.

The company’s specialised affordable rental and student housing platforms include rentalbee.ph, bedsandrooms.ph, and enta.ph. Already in beta, further platforms for staff housing, warehouses, billboard, land, agricultural properties, parking, holiday homes and many more will soon be launched.

Aside from the platforms, the company has also launched new accommodation brands such as Havitat, Cozy Folk, 825 Spaces, and Link Living, which have been launched in the Sinigang Valley: the up and coming silicon valley of the Philippines.

“The developments around the world, which have been accelerated by the pandemic, means that the definition of home, live, office and work has rapidly changed. The same applies to the way people search, view, own, rent, lease or transact real estate. Unfortunately, the Philippe property market has been stagnant for decades. However, it is now is ripe for disruption,” Llamoso said.

Also Read: zennya nets US$1.2M to scale its mobile healthcare, medical last-mile logistics services in Philippines

“Rather than being a challenge, the pandemic became an opportunity for more Filipinos, including Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs) and entrepreneurs, to utilise and engage more with technology when it comes to searching, buying, leasing, and managing properties,” Sesante added.

In May, Foxmont Capital Partners co-led a US$1.2 million funding round of zennya, a mobile healthcare and medical last-mile logistics startup in the Philippines.

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Image Credit: Alternative Housing Group

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Bambu, a Singapore-based startup providing digital wealth technology for B2B businesses across the globe, has announced the acquisition of Tradesocio, a developer of wealth management software for advisors, based in the island nation.

The terms of the deal were not disclosed.

The company said that this acquisition strengthens Bambu’s team size and will give it access to TradeSocio’s stock trading technology. “Like many startups, we have a flat structure. We will merge the TradeSocio team with the Bambu team. Bambu HQ will remain in Singapore but we now have global reach both in terms of team tech and clients,” CEO Ned Phillips said.

Additionally, Tradesocio’s presence across EMEA (Europe, Middle East, and Africa) and India is set to grow Bambu’s reach in a rapidly expanding and evolving global digital wealth market.

“After five years of building solid foundations, Bambu is now entering a phase of rapid growth. This deal helps us in three key areas: it expands our product offering into stocks and crypto, it gives us a wider global footprint, and enables us to scale our team effectively to match exponential demand. We believe this positions us well for our Series C and ambitions of becoming the global leader in wealthtech,” he added.

Also Read: Bambu raises US$3M to provide automated, algorithm-driven financial planning services to investors

Separately, in an emailed response to e27, Phillips said that Bambu is in talks with investors to raise US$25 million in Series C round and aims to make US$100 million in annual revenue within five years.

Founded in 2016, Bambu provides digital wealth technology services for businesses of every size and industry, from finance to commercial. The firm uses Machine Learning tools to enable companies to make saving and investing simple for their clients.

With 70 employees, Bambu is present in London and Hong Kong, besides Singapore. It also has representatives in San Francisco and Johannesburg, with clients in the US, Europe, the UAE, and across Asia.

The company had previously raised US$3 million in Series A funding, led by Franklin Templeton Investments, with participation from Singapore’s family office Octava and Japanese fintech investor Mamoru Taniya.

Established in 2015, Tradesocio enables financial institutions worldwide to access, manage and offer investment management and brokerage solutions to their customers. It provides an end-to-end financial management solution, from development, hosting and maintenance, to security and post-sales technical support.

According to Tradesocio, it offers tailored digital investment management solutions to the wider investment management community that it claims reduces costs and increases revenue potential.

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Hungry for foodtech innovation

Improving food safety in SEA with tracking and tracing technologies by Tan Aik Jin, Vertical Solutions Lead at Zebra Technologies APAC

The Zebra Technologies’ Food Safety Supply Chain Vision Study found that more than half of the consumers (51 per cent) cite the fear of food borne illness and disease as the reason to learn more about where their food comes from, especially with Singapore researchers recently reporting that the COVID-19 virus can survive in frozen meat for up to three weeks.

As a result, food manufacturers are confronted with the issues of food supply chain transparency. At the same time, they need to meet food safety standards, avoid recalls, maintain compliance, and earn customer trust and loyalty.

Food supply chains will need to bear increased pressure to deliver quality and safe food from the farm, to the factory and finally to the consumer’s table. Concurrently, countries like Singapore, an emerging food tech hub of Asia, must quickly address these issues.

The age of the super farmer: How technology is enabling the average farmer by Xin Yi Lim, Executive Director, Sustainability & Agri Impact at Pinduoduo

Farmers can now harness new technologies to monitor what is happening on their farms in real time, optimise production through remote sensing and automate operations with precision farming practices and even robots.

Moreover, this greater visibility of production, together with online marketplaces, can reduce waste and make pricing more aligned with supply and demand dynamics. At the seed level, agricultural biotechnology gives scientists the tools to alter food at the DNA level to become resistant to pests and environmental factors.

COVID-19 has stressed global food systems and poses a threat, particularly to vulnerable populations. Technology will be the key enabler to help us meet this common challenge. By embracing innovative technologies to meet the growing global demand for food, we can and will make a difference. Let’s take a look at some of the up-and-coming technologies.

How small and medium-sized restaurants in Taiwan leveraged digital tools to survive by Ken Chen, co-founder of iChef

According to the latest stats by the Department of Statistics, Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA), as of February 2020, 54 per cent of all F&B outlets in Taiwan started offering delivery (compared to 40 per cent in 2018 and 47 per cent in 2019).

When COVID-19 hit, the F&B industry was forced to find creative ways to increase sales. Restaurants began seeking delivery arrangements that did not involve delivery providers or third party platforms.

Hence, the need for restaurants to streamline their in-house ordering website and manage multiple platforms more efficiently emerged.

From founders to founders

Couples running a business together: Why it’s not as taboo as you think by Fanny See, COO and co-founder at Detrack

My partner, Dason Goh and I are married for 13 years, and we are also co-founders of Detrack, a logistics tech startup that created Singapore’s leading delivery tracking Software-as-a-Service platform.

Dason and I founded the company when we discovered a lack of visibility in last-mile deliveries, could not find a suitable solution in the market, then decided to take it upon ourselves to create the technology from scratch.

Our journey to success has been anything but easy. As with any coworker or colleague within the same department, we faced numerous challenges and obstacles and did not always see eye to eye on all matters.

It was through open and honest communication that we built rapport with each other, nurturing and sustaining a healthy working and romantic relationship, allowing them to successfully scale their business into its present-day achievements.

How did we manage and balance our professional and personal lives? We would like to share five important tips on running a business together as a power couple.

Why we should embrace a startup mindset in today’s volatile economic climate by Han Phay, founder and Managing Partner, Phay and Partners

While the Singapore economy seems to be getting an optimistic forecast, it is not time for us to slacken our efforts. With the unpredictable nature of the economy, businesses continue to face a daunting question:

How do I ensure my company survives through this uphill battle and continues towards success? That’s an area that we can look to startups and small and medium enterprises (SMEs) for.

A UOB SME Outlook 2021 Study showed that three in five SMEs who embraced going digital are expecting a growth in revenue and seven in 10 SMEs feel more confident in their business recoveries after adopting digital initiatives.

The startups and SMEs in Singapore have managed to stay afloat regardless of the economic situation and a large portion of this achievement can be attributed to their entrepreneurial mindset and methodologies.

Tech scouting and innovation partnerships: How co-creation can foster growth post-COVID-19 by Michael Goh, Deputy Head, Innovation and Technology at IPI

When management consulting firm McKinsey and Company surveyed over 200 organisations last year, more than 90 per cent said that they expect the pandemic to fundamentally change the way they do business, and almost as many believed that it will have a lasting impact on customers’ wants and needs.

By studying past crises, the firm also found that companies that invest in innovation during a crisis are likely to reap benefits in the difficult period and for years thereafter.

Those that did so in the 2007-2009 Great Recession outperformed peers in normalised market capitalisation by 10 per cent during the recession, and up to 30 per cent for several years afterwards.

To maximise their innovation capability, firms must look externally, to keep abreast of trends, identify useful emerging technologies and pinpoint opportunities for partnerships.

Trends in the fintech and money world

Are banks dying? Why fortune favours the bold and ASEAN’s neo banks by Kaspar Situmorang, CEO of BRI Agro

The similarities between taxis in the US and most legacy banks in Southeast Asia today are uncanny: inefficient and unreliable service, dependent on protectionist systems, refusal to adapt to the new digital reality, and even widespread discrimination against certain client segments deemed low-value (like micro-businesses).

Even as 2020 arrived, legacy banks still expected regulators to protect them from neo banks and other digital usurpers. After all, how did the P2P craze pan out in China in 2014?

A proper meltdown. Banks sat safely ensconced in the knowledge that regulators had their backs, afraid of triggering another financial disaster.

New-age internet platforms are breeding grounds for financial crimes. Here’s how to tackle them by Douglas Wolfson, Director – Commercial Strategy, LNRS

The online world is an easy place to hide your identity and large amounts of money routinely change hands for opaque purposes. Take for example online gaming platforms, where players routinely pay for in-game options or credits.

These non-transparent transactions provide a legitimate explanation for anyone who wants to hide the source of a large amount of money.

Live streaming, where celebrities and influencers receive gifts or sell products, is another appealing option for money launderers. A series of fake accounts acts as a conduit for money transfers that are difficult to track.

Accelerating Asian IPO markets: How long can the initial public offering boom last? by Daglar Cizmeci, Investor, Founder and CEO

Asian initial public offerings have followed these wider trends around the world, with the market accelerating at a rapid pace following on from an economic recovery in late 2020.

As a result, Asian companies have recorded their best quarter for listings of all time, owing to greater levels of liquidity during the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as lower interest rates and rallying stock markets.

Firms raised US$49.3 billion through IPO share sales both domestically and overseas.

As the data shows, the amount Asian companies have raised through new listings in Q1 of 2021 has been consistently double the level of revenue generated for at least a decade.

Such a significant acceleration has inevitably led to questions as to how long such an unprecedented boom can last across Asian markets and beyond. Can IPOs sustain the public listing gold rush throughout 2021? Or will we see the market run out of steam sooner rather than later?

How a global pandemic changed (and continues to change) the way we pay by Kelvin Phua, Head of Global Payment Networks at PPRO

After a continued global effort to flatten the curve and months of social distancing, COVID-19 is finally in the rear-view. People around the world are relieved to be back to life as it was, but will things ever truly be the same?

COVID-19 shook the global economy as the largest pandemic since the Spanish flu in the early 20th century. Social distancing drastically shifted consumer behaviour and introduced a new set of challenges to stores and shoppers alike. But, as humanity has always done, we came together, adapted, and innovated.

We’ve entered a more stable 2021, adjusted to a new normal, and now we’re pausing to reflect on what we’ve just overcome. Let’s take a closer look at how payments and global commerce have changed in the last 18 months.

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